The invention relates to an improved animal litter screening device, particularly a cat litter screening device comprising two cat litter pans removable positioned on opposite sides of a screen. By installing the screen and pans together and flipping the device upside down, used or soiled litter can be screened and recycled. The invention is an improvement over U.S. Pat. No. 4,325,822 to Miller, issued on Apr. 20, 1982.
In the Miller patent, two animal litter pans are removable connected with open portions of the pans in facing relationship to the respective other litter pan, the screen is positioned in interposed relationship between the opposed litter pans. Tracks on the screen member slidingly receive the litter pans to interlockingly and detachably engage the litter pans. Abutment members are mounted on opposite sides and opposite longitudinal ends of the litter screen, each abutment member preventing one of the litter pans from proceeding past the abutment member in sliding fashion along the longitudinal direction of the tracks. Therefore, because the abutment members are on opposite ends of the screen, each litter pan must be slidably removed in an opposite direction with respect to the screen, than the respective other litter pan.
Because of this abutment arrangement of the Miller patent, the operation of the pet litter separator of Miller can require more room to manipulate the device because the working area or staging area is effectively stretched out. This is demonstrated in FIG. 1 and FIG. 7 of the Miller patent. A person working close to the floor, in a crouched position, may have to rearrange his position several times to effectuate operation of the mechanism, to recycle the used litter. Of course, the various operations of the Miller patent could be performed without extending in length the working area by strategic rotation of the pans (about an axis normal to the floor) at a certain stage of the procedure. However, changing or recycling used animal litter is not a pleasant task to sight and smell, nor to the person's back as most animal litter receptacles are located on the floor, and a simple and quick operation is desireable. Requiring the person to simultaneously exercise coordination, dexterity and forethought to perform various positioning operations associated with such an unpleasant task is a drawback to the Miller patent. Simplifying the recycling steps is an advantage to the present invention.
Additionally, the Miller patent discloses a wire mesh screen. A wire mesh screen presents drawbacks in that it is more expensive to furnish for the screening assembly; once bent or damaged it can be difficult to engage to the pans; and once damaged can present cutting or pricking hazard to a person's hands.
The abutments of the Miller patent are strictly lateral stops. The abutments do not provide a looking means which can removably hold the animal litter pan assembly to the screen. The abutments of the Miller patent do not lockingly locate the two pans in proper position with respect to the screen and each other. Thus, when performing the various manipulations and flip overs required by the Miller patent it is conceivable that at least one of the animal litter pans and the screen could be misaligned or could become disengaged, spilling contents of the pans onto the floor. This is especially possible once the litter pan holding clumps and solid excrement is removed with the screen from the pan holding the recycled litter. Depending on the orientation of the abutment, if the person mistakenly pulls the top pan and screen from the recycled litter pan by applying removal force to the top pan rather than the screen handle, the top pan can quickly extend over the screen and possiblY dump animal refuse onto the floor.
It is therefore new to the art to provide an improved animal litter screening apparatus which alleviates these drawbacks as well as other inventive advantages described hereinafter.